Nintendo Denies, Then Confirms, Wii Sunlight Issues

Talk about confusion! As we reported a few days ago, the Wii experiences a few, er, issues when the sensor bar is exposed to direct sunlight. Nintendo didn't take long to respond, but much like the Wii region-free issue, there seems to be some internal debate as to whether or not there really is a sunlight issue. As a result, buyers are left in a bit of a lurch as far as whether or not there a sunlight/sensor bar issue really exists.

The immediate response from Nintendo, following the initial report, was as follows:

Our testing thus far shows no great risk of light interference when playing a game that relies on the pointer and sensor bar.

However, the day after this report was made, Nintendo further commented that sunlight could "confuse" the sensor bar, and that there was no plan to correct the issue in the first-generation of Wii consoles. So, bottom line, if you had the crazy idea to put your Wii right underneath your picture window, you should probably think twice. In all seriousness, this shouldn't affect gamers much, but it's something that gamers should be aware of if your game room gets a good deal of sunlight.